Croping in Photo

[Petar Petrenko]

Hi,

is there a way how to crop individual objects in Photo instead of the whole document?

[GarryP]

If you have Designer then you can switch to that application and do the crop there, then switch back to Photo.
If you don’t have Designer then you can clip the layer within another layer (e.g. a rectangle, or other shape, with no fill or stroke).

[Petar Petrenko]

3 minutes ago, GarryP said:

If you have Designer then you can switch to that application and do the crop there, then switch back to Photo.
If you don’t have Designer then you can clip the layer within another layer (e.g. a rectangle, or other shape, with no fill or stroke).

I have all three apps, but I want to do it in Photo not in other two.

[GarryP]

Looks like you’ll need to use clipping as mentioned above, unless someone else has a better idea.

[Petar Petrenko]

2 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Looks like you’ll need to use clipping as mentioned above, unless someone else has a better idea.

Not clipping, but cropping like in Designer and Publisher.

[GarryP]

As far as I know, Photo doesn’t have the same Crop Tool – it works differently – that the other applications have, which is why I suggested that you use clipping instead.

[carl123]

 

[Petar Petrenko]

Thanks Carl and Garry. I'm familiar with clipping and masking, but I strictly want to use cropping.

[GarryP]

If you want to use cropping in the way that Designer and Publisher allow you to do then you need to be using one of those applications for that functionality as it doesn’t exist in Photo (unless someone proves otherwise).

If you absolutely need to use Photo to do that cropping then you can clip the layer within another layer and then use Merge Visible to do the ‘crop’ but that might not produce the results you want.

You only have two options, no matter what your requirements are, you can crop in Designer/Publisher or clip in Photo.

[Petar Petrenko]

4 minutes ago, GarryP said:

doesn’t exist in Photo

This is the exact answer to my question. Nothing more.

[PaulEC]

1 hour ago, NNN said:

Hi,

is there a way how to crop individual objects in Photo instead of the whole document?

I get the feeling that this is a rhetorical question, and is a rather roundabout way of saying that you think it should be available in Photo! If so I would certainly agree that it would be handy to be able to crop individual objects (as well as the whole canvas, not instead!) in Photo, without having to open the file in Designer.

[Petar Petrenko]

26 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

I get the feeling that this is a rhetorical question, and is a rather roundabout way of saying that you think it should be available in Photo! If so I would certainly agree that it would be handy to be able to crop individual objects (as well as the whole canvas, not instead!) in Photo, without having to open the file in Designer.

I just wanted to be sure it can't be used the same way as in Designer and Publisher to make suggestion to the Affinity Team.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, NNN said:

I just wanted to be sure it can't be used the same way as in Designer and Publisher to make suggestion to the Affinity Team.

Photo is designed to be used with a single canvas, and the Crop Tool is designed to work on that canvas (document).

Designer is designed to work on multiple Artboards, and Publisher is designed to work with multiple Pages. In those environments, it is less appropriate to crop the entire document at one time, so their Crop Tools work on individual objects instead.

I doubt that Serif would change the way that Photo works, because cropping the entire canvas is an important function when working on photos, which is the primary purpose of Photo. (Though I will mention that if you Open a Designer document with multiple Artboards, or a Publisher document with multiple Pages, in Photo, its Crop Tool changes and works like the ones in Designer/Publisher. Still, I doubt Serif would change the basic function in Photo.)

And if they were to change it, it would probably not be for a long time. The Clipping approach is easy to learn, and will work for you today.

[PaulEC]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

I doubt that Serif would change the way that Photo works, because cropping the entire canvas is an important function when working on photos,

I would fully agree with this. I definitely wouldn't want the Cropping Tool in Photo to be changed. But I do think it might be handy to have an alternative cropping tool that works in the same way as in Designer. There are times, for example when compositing several pictures, that it would be handy to be able to quickly and simply crop individual layers.  It's not a big deal for me, there are other ways to do it, but it would be useful occasionally.

[Petar Petrenko]

It can be done this way:

1. If an object/layer is selected then you crop only the selection;
2. If no object/layer is selected, then when you click on crop tool, the complete document is selected for cropping.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, PaulEC said:

But I do think it might be handy to have an alternative cropping tool that works in the same way as in Designer.

If you mean AD's Vector Crop Tool, note that it is just a simplified way of adding a non-destructive rectangular clipping mask to a layer. Use it in AD & you will notice that has a mask badge in the Layers panel & if you right-click on it in the contextual menu that pops up are multiple items, including Edit Mask, Refine Mask, & Release Mask.

With that in mind, I think a better name for that tool would be Vector Mask Tool, or something similar.